Beating
by trufflemores
Summary: 1.06. "Looks like you were born to take a beating."


Barry doesn't remember passing out.

He remembers running like hell. The man of steel would have killed him if he hadn't forced himself off the pavement. Even though the pain made him slow, he gasped his way through it, pushing onward until he reached Star Labs. He knew he would be safe there; he just had to _get_ there.

The second he entered the main lab, something went wrong and his world dissolved.

A voice pulls him back to the present.

"Barry?" Cisco asks, and the genuine alarm in his voice almost pushes Barry off the floor, but he is so, so dizzy and beyond tired and his chest hurts, so he doesn't move. His hand hurts so much he thinks he might actually throw up. Somehow he represses the urge.

Caitlin says, "Barry? Are you okay?"

She flattens a hand on his side and he groans as it makes contact with a rib that has to be cracked. Thankfully her reflexes are quick; she pulls her hand back like it's been burned, saying, "I'm sorry."

He's breathing heavily, too heavily, and he knows it's coming so he pleads in a cracked voice, "I need up."

Somehow Cisco gets him there, barely, and then he's throwing up into a trashcan Caitlin conjures. He tries to tamp his emotions down but they still rise inexorably to the surface, tears streaking down his face as he coughs, sitting back with a miserable groan.

"Help him up," Caitlin instructs, and Barry has to grit his teeth as Cisco threads an arm underneath his shoulders.

"Ready?"

"No," Barry admits, and he wishes his voice wouldn't break so easily, like his bones, shattering against steel.

Cisco settles for stabilizing him like that, upright but unmoving, while Caitlin removes the trashcan.

"I'm sorry," he says, feeling bad, but she just sighs and gives his left hand a gentle tug.

"C'mon. We've got you."

It's painful, and his world goes momentarily back at the shift in elevation, but somehow he's on his feet taking three halting steps towards a bed, Cisco's arm underneath his shoulders and Caitlin behind them, ready to catch him if he falls. He gasps as he lands on the mattress, feeling his stomach rolling, his head pounding, and he wants to bury it in his hands, but he can't.

"Please, please make it stop hurting," he tells them, and he isn't sure who's listening, exactly, because his eyelids are sliding shut and his world is quietly shutting down, his body numbing itself to the pain.

He still catches sharp, bright points of awareness as Caitlin x-rays his hand and chest. His attempts to resurface fail until Cisco squeezes his hand hard and says, "Hey, buddy. Stay with us."

He's trying not to, really, really trying not to, especially as they get the suit off, breath catching when they get to the right glove.

"Don't," he says.

"I'm sorry," Caitlin replies, and he can tell she's careful, she's trying, but it still catches and then he's screaming.

He thinks it should taper off but it doesn't; it goes on and on and on, building until it's all he can see and think about and feel.

Then he's gone.

. o .

Barry doesn't know how long he's out for.

Someone taps his cheek and he blinks blearily, staring at Cisco's worried smile. "You really gotta stop getting in trouble, dude," he says, stepping back and folding his arms thoughtfully.

Barry has to swallow hard before he's able to speak. "I know." Glancing down at his hand, every digit splinted, he adds, "This is new."

"Don't move it," Caitlin says, and he watches her, head still throbbing, as she using a strange-looking screwdriver to finish tighten part of it. It's painful, but he almost feels numb to it, his hands and feet cold, his chest sharp, his head a persistent throb in the background.

"Thirteen fractures," she tells him, "a new record. And that's just in your hand." Stepping away, she continues, "You also have a concussion, three cracked ribs, and a bruised spleen."

 _Ouch_ , he thinks summarily, closing his eyes briefly.

"Even with your powers, it'll take a few hours to heal," she finishes.

He scarcely has time to process before Dr. Wells speaks.

"What exactly did you hit?"

Barry shakes his head fractionally, struggling to comprehend it himself, wondering if he made it all up except – nope, his hand still hurts like hell and he can barely move for how sore he is.

"A man," he says at last. Then, eloquently: "A big, bad man." Trying to put his fuzzy thoughts together, he explains, "His skin changed when I hit him. Like, it turned to metal."

"Interesting," Dr. Wells says, and he sounds like he's interested, too; Barry just wishes they could trade places and he could be the one solving the fun meta-human puzzle while someone else dealt with the fallout. "A man of steel."

"So you went after a meta-human alone?" Cisco asks, stepping forward, and he sounds hurt.

 _You didn't punch a steel girder at 400 miles an hour_.

"Dude, why didn't you call us?"

"I didn't know what he was," Barry says truthfully, hissing as he sits up. "Besides, I was off-duty."

"Hm," Caitlin says, and he can't tell if she's amused or upset; even when he turns to look, he can't quite read her.

Cisco says seriously, "You're lucky it wasn't your teeth. Those puppies don't grow back."

He tries to be grateful and focus on what they're saying, on what needs to be done, but something keeps pushing forward, a nagging inclination he can't fathom out of the numbness of his mind.

Still, he has to say something, because it's bothering him that he can't remember, that there's a meta-human he might _know._ "The strange thing is," he says quietly, "I feel like I knew him."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin asks.

Barry shakes his head slightly. "He said something that was . . . familiar."

Then, more urgently, he tells them, "But he's gonna hurt someone if we don't stop him, so how do I fight a guy who's made of steel?"

"We will find a way," Dr. Wells says, utterly calm, and Barry believes him, too, can feel himself sinking into a slow stupor, the momentary adrenaline of consciousness wearing off. "Tonight, you heal."

He wants to say something useful, but all he can manage is a light, breathy, "Yeah." He sinks back against the cot slowly, grimacing, before settling his head on his side and trying to shut the pain receptors in his brain off so he can _think_ properly.

 _Why do I know you?_ he asks, over and over.

It isn't until Caitlin says, "Bar?" that he looks over at her.

"Hm?"

His eyes are only half-open and he can't seem to focus on her properly, but it's okay, because it's late and he's very tired, and Cisco and Dr. Wells are chatting in a corner and he wishes he could join them.

"Are you okay?"

He thinks about it, trying not to let the uncertainty show when he says, "Yeah." Flexing his arm infinitesimally, he adds, "Never better."

She hums and he blinks when she drapes a warm blanket over his chest and legs, feeling some of the tension unwind from him at the immediately calming effect it has.

"Better?" she asks, mimicking his language, and he nods a little, grateful.

"Thanks."

"I'll be right over here if you need me. Try to get some sleep," she adds softly, turning down the lights to a dim glow, Dr. Wells and Cisco's conversation falling to match it.

"You should go home," Barry tells her.

Caitlin huffs softly. "Barry. Go to sleep."

Something about being surrounded by his friends has a lulling effect on him, once they start to chat among themselves, bantering lightly about dispersal ratios and chaos theory and whether or not it's Nobel-prize worthy to be studying the number of insects Barry could swallow during a given run.

He's glad he doesn't stay awake long enough to hear the answer, sinking into a doze, aware of the conversational ebb and flow of their voices, of light clicks on keyboards and more insistent arguments, culminating in a triumphant, "BOOM. Nailed it." that Caitlin shushes.

"I knew I would never regret bringing you two to my facilities," Dr. Wells says, and he sounds genuinely amused, fatherly.

Barry wishes he could inspire the same level of pride, thinks about how chaotic his life is – struck by lightning, mentored by the man who he admired above virtually everyone else, beaten down by meta-humans – but also thinking about how simple it is, too, Caitlin and Cisco and Dr. Wells, fighting crime and geeking out at the same time.

He hears the start of their next mental game – "okay, you're stranded on a desert island and you can only bring three things with you: go" – before he's dozing off.

It's disorienting, being woken two hours later and subjected to a mild interrogation – "What's your name?" "Barry Allen." "Where are you?" "Star Labs." "What happened to you?" "Big, bad steel guy" – but she lets him slip back under almost immediately.

He's almost used to it by the third time it happens, even though it's late, and dark, and Cisco's sleepily saying, "Okay, but you forgot reloading time; even the Arrow doesn't have a limitless supply." He yawns deeply, asking, "Hey, wonder boy, you up?"

"No," Barry replies, voice heavy with sleep.

"Cool," Cisco replies, sitting on the cot. "What's your favorite _Star Wars_ movie?"

" _Empire Strikes Back_."

Cisco claps him on the leg and says, " _Thank you_ ," while Caitlin sighs in the corner. "We're going to have a marathon and you are going to fall in love with it."

"Uh huh."

"Guys," Barry whispers, draping his left arm over his face, and he somehow falls asleep like that.

When he wakes, it's dark and he's alone, and he feels sleepy and sick and disoriented, and then he hears Cisco snoring while Caitlin click-click-clicks away at a keyboard, delicate, calming.

"You should go home," he tells her, and he doesn't know how late it is but Dr. Wells is gone and they should be, too.

"You have a concussion," Caitlin reminds him, and he catches sight of Cisco folded over a table, arms crossed and head pillowed on them. "Go back to sleep, Bar."

"Should … get some sleep, too," he advises huskily.

He hears a soft, fond, "Not gonna happen," before he's gone.

And even if he has no idea how to beat the man of steel, he thinks, at least he has the right team at his side to help him figure it out.


End file.
